Raiders look to bounce back, claim home tournament game
FAIRBORN — Wright State seemed to be peaking at the right time, having dominated first-place Oakland on the road Sunday for its third straight win.
The Raiders were finally looking like the team everyone expected to see, but the momentum didn’t last. And there were myriad reasons why they fell at home to Purdue Fort Wayne, 79-77, in overtime Wednesday.
Was Trey Calvin’s illness a factor? No doubt. The Horizon League preseason player of the year was shooting nearly 50% from the field and 40% on 3′s, and he went 3 of 15 overall and 1 of 7 from the arc. That’s not him.
Could coach Scott Nagy have called a timeout to set up a play at the end of regulation and OT with the game on the line? Sure. But that’s not his style, preferring instead to push the ball up the court and keep defenses on their heels. Lots of coaches go that route.
Could the Raiders have been a little full of themselves coming off the Oakland rout and going against a mid-pack league team — one they dropped 106 points on the first time they played? Always possible.
“It’s much more difficult to handle success than failure. It just is. It’s just a natural thing when things start to go your way for you to relax, for people to pat you on the back,” Nagy said.
“It can take your focus off, and you can lose your urgency. We talked a lot about it. But I thought our players played with urgency.”
They did. It was the fifth straight game they’ve held an opponent under 80 points after never having done it twice in a row before that.
But inconsistency has been a killer. They failed to win at least four regular-season games in a row for the first time in almost 20 years.
The 2004-05 team coached by Paul Biancardi was the last at Wright State that never produced four consecutive wins and finished 15-15.
The Raiders are 17-13 overall and 12-7 in the league. And while the PFW loss was a crusher, it wasn’t as costly as it may have been — not that there aren’t major ramifications in their season-finale against Northern Kentucky (17-13, 12-7).
Oakland (14-5) only has to beat Detroit Mercy (1-17) at home Saturday to win the outright crown.
Youngstown State (14-6) has concluded its season and can finish either tied for first or no worse than a tie for second.
Green Bay (13-6) plays at Milwaukee (11-8) on Saturday, but even with a loss, it holds the tiebreaker edge on the Raiders because it swept them this season.
Wright State and visiting NKU are playing Saturday for the fourth seed and a quarterfinal home game in the HL tourney.
The two teams meet again on Thursday at the site of the winner.
The Raiders beat the Norse, 85-78, on the road in the first meeting.
“I’m not thinking about any of that. I promise you I’m not,” Nagy said of the tourney.
“I’m just trying to get our guys through this, get their heads wrapped around what we need to do next. If you asked me scenarios, I wouldn’t know them.”
His players, though, are a little more plugged in.
“You see stuff. We’re not blind to it, obviously. But you try not to pay any attention to it,” junior guard Alex Huibregtse said.
“You focus on the next game. Looking forward too much gets you beat.*